The Empire
The Empire, known officially as the Holy Daegonean Empire, is an Empire in a fictional universe on a planet that loosely follows real-world geography, and with a history that slightly resembles the actual history of our world, with the exceptions that the cosmic powers in this world are dictated by powers greater even than the humble laws of physics. In other words, "magic" appears quite real here, The Old Empire After the cataclysmic event that shattered one body of land into the continents there are now and severed many of the dwarven deep-roads, The Empire was founded by the Thrasians, who built their civilization upon the ruins of elven civilization, effectively cheating the "natural order" of technological advancement by many hundred years at best. The cataclysmic event was known as the great shattering and was a last ditch effort for the elves to stop the human revolution. The humans were actually a slave-race created by the elves to serve them as workers, but naturally it got out of control. One by one, the elven cities scattered across the entire body of land fell to the human uprisings, and the elves found themselves bound in chains, those that didn't escape. As a last ditch effort to seize the advancement of the rebel armies, the landmasses were shattered into different continents, defeating the Dwarves who were the on-and-off enemies of the elves as well, but even after disabling the human armies possibilities of linking up, all but a few remote settlements fell to the elves, and in many cases the elves saw no other option that to use incredibly destructive forces to lay waste to their enemies. The Thrasians were one of the many humans cultures that rose from the ashes and were not originally a nation, but rather a collection of "city states", but their collective culture was referred to by others as Thrasian because of the name of their unofficial captial; Thrasia (the Thrasians are inspired by Ancient greek civilization) Thrasians believed in many gods as there was religious freedom, but primarily worshipped the Sun God, Helios. The Thrasian Empire spread across the southern parts of Daegone, as far as to what is today the border of Francia (France), and then across the ocean into the Rahamra (Africa), and were contiously at war with the Neferan nations (Arabic and Persian culture) for non-religious reasons. The Neferans were also Helios Worshippers, but they did not have the same religious freedom as the Thrasians did. This war halted the expansion of the Thrasian Freehold, but the Dwarves intervened in this conflict after several after over a century of nothing but conflict. The Dwarves gave the Thrasians the technology they needed to advance in this conflict, but also introduced a new religion to the Thrasians, namely Cosmos Worship. The Dwarves assisted the Thrasian Empire in capturing the Neferan-held city of Khalmaria, which was apparently the place where Cosmos interfered with the perverse experiments of the elves and where all human kind originated from, a major holy location. The greatest temple of Helios worship was also located here, however, leading to several generations of combat between the Neferans and the Thrasians. The Dwarves eyed a potential ally in the Thrasians, as they believed that this particular people could be converted to their beliefs, and also that they had the strength and mind-set to unite the humans under one banner. They contacted one of the noble-houses of Thrasia that held a significant amount of power and backed them in a plot to overthrow the freehold nation and form an Empire, and succeeded, making Cosmos belief the state religion. The new-found religion was established in Retalia, where the grand cathedral was built, and the name of the Empire changed from simply being Thrasia and to recognizing themselves as an Empire, having a mind to spread across all of the world. At this time, it was believed that there was only one continent. No one had sailed far enough south to prove that the Rahamra wasn't also connected to Daegone, so they called themselves the Daegonean Empire. The Daegonean Empire mainly struggled to maintain a hold of it's conquered lands, which at this time covered all of known Western Daegone (with the exception of Nordmar), ending by the vast empty stretches of the North-East, and the Neferan lands of the South-East, and in fact, at this point in time, the only expansion going on was a slow and dragging expansion of Rahamra. A century and no less than four Emperors later, the Empire formed the Senate, turning the Empire into a republic and into something that resembled modern democracy more closely. The Holy Daegonian Empire (resembling Ancient Rome) was dependent on the loyalty of it's subjects, and a mutual desire to maintain the good trade and the spread of advancement, but seeing as many cultures were being integrated into the Empire, a process which met with several complications, but it was the vices of mankind which resulted in the ultimate fall of the Empire. The New Empire When the Empire fell, only Thrasia (which had become a small province marking the eastern border of Western Daegone) and the Imperial City (a city state) remained true to the Imperial ideals. Civil war and power struggles had overthrown the more slowly developing colonies of the Empire. The provinces became individual kingdoms and a two centuries of civil unrest raged across Daegone. The threat of the Neferans from the East was enough to briefly end the wars within Western Daegone and unite them against a common enemy in holy war, when the holy city of Khalmaria fell back into Neferan hands. As it would turn out, the Neferans had united into a joint Sultanage, essentially a Neferan Empire, and they had adapted much of the technology they had lacked at the time the Westerners first beat them, and while the Westerners had been locked in perpetual war against eachother, the Neferans had advanced further than the Westerners had ever come, though only in select regions of their very diverse Empire. An entire century of nothing but holy warfare devestated both sides, and in the end, the Westerners managed to retake Khalmaria several times and lose it again. The holy war for Khalmaria ended when the Westerners were forced to defend against an invasion coming from the north, the Nordmarians reported hordes of strange creatures attacking in force across the iced-over ocean north of their Kingdom. Several surprise attacks within the Empire happened mostly in the mountains, and it became clear that the Dwarven deep-roads were being used for other purposes now. The attackers were Darklings, strange twisted creatures, corrupted by Chaos, or so the old books claim. The first Darkling war lasted 10 years and resulted in several major cities falling, and large rural areas falling under Darkling control for several years after the war had ended. At this point, the Nordmarians (who claimed more horrors were to follow) joined the Daegonian Empire, and soon every other province (with the exception of a few city states) followed in their footsteps. The Empire was reborn as the Holy Daegonian Empire, but the Kings remained Viceroys of their individual provinces, retaining the title of King in regards to their subjects, and the feudal rulership that was found in most countries at this time was maintained. The next Darkling war that followed threatened to almost be the doom of the Empire, and called for a brief alliance with Neferan forces, resulting in the Khalmarian pact, which stated that Khalmaria should become an independant city-state with alliances towards both Empires. This Darkling war was different from the previous, in that this time, the attackers were seemingly undead. Vampire Lords lead their armies of undead monsters against the Knights of the Empire, and rumor has it that these Vampire Lords still maintain small regions of the mountain ranges in the Eastern most parts of the Empire where they study their tomes of necromancy. In the following years, all of Daegone, including the Neferan lands, were ravaged by plague, but in the midst of the chaos, two new continents were discovered, and seeing as there was now peace with the Neferans, trade with the Far-East had resumed.